1906        Hutchison, Percy Adams. "Sailors' Chanties." _The Journal of American Folklore_ 19(72) (Jan.-March 1906): 16-28

This is perhaps the first article on chanties by and oriented towards academic Folklore. The disciplinary approach is evident from the beginning, where the author takes in interest in chanties as part of a larger interest in the nature of "communal composition."
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Whether or not the communal theory should be called upon to account for everything in primitive poetry is a far-reaching question, and one which does not fall within the scope of this paper. All that this paper will attempt to do will be to follow through certain actual instances of communal composition which happened to come under the observation of the author…
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As I argued in my paper (posted above), folklorists at this time approached chanties as ballad collectors/analysts. Here Hutchinson notes how he is bringing in chanties to illustrate ballad-related ideas.
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Some years ago it was the fortune of the author to spend part of
his time cruising on merchant sailing-ships, when he became attracted
by the chanties -- those songs sailors are accustomed to sing when
hauling at the sails, walking the capstan round, working the windlass,
or toiling at the pumps. A few of these chanties he collected; but
the collection was soon forgotten, and came no more to his mind
until a short time ago, when he happened to be concerned with bal-
lad problems. Then it was that the chantie-singing to which he had
so often listened appeared in a new light, for it became at once appar-
ent that here was a contemporary, dramatic, and complete exempli-
fication of the communal process.
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He quotes GOODBYE FARE YOU WELL to demonstrate the "authetic" air of a chanty, contrasted with Kipling's verse. However the version he quotes is that of Davis/Tozer, which is itself rather contrived. Then he says,
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Clearly, this chantie grew. The reader realizes that it is only by
chance the words are what they are, and where they are; as one
reads, there is entirely lacking any feeling of inevitablenes!; as to
words or lines. That each line has been improvised to suit the
exigencies of the moment is evident; the only necessitation one feels
is in regard to the rhyme-word of the second solo-line. Conscious
structure there is none, or almost none. Line could interchange
with line, stanza with stanza, the whole could be longer or shorter,
and the chantie would be no worse, and no better, structurally, than
it is now. The whole is haphazard, inconsequential, and, excepting
the refrain, absolutely spontaneous.
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Well, his statements make sense, but too bad about the example.

Continuing with his dicussion of communal composition, he quotes DEAD HORSE.
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As a further illustration of improvisation and refrain this masthead-
ing chantie is typical: -

As I was going to Rig-a-ma-row,
(CHORUS.) I say so, and I hope so,
I saw an old man go riding by,
(CHORUS.) Poor - old - man.

Said I, old man your horse will die,
I say so, etc.
Said I, old man your horse will die,
Poor old man.

And if he dies I 'll tan his skin, etc.
And from his hide I 'll make my shoes, etc.

The extent to which the anatomy of the horse might be utilized in
such a ballad as this is obviously infinite, and would in
any instance be determined solely by the length of time
required to masthead the sail. Let us assume that to be some smaller piece of top-canvas, and pass to the conclusion of the chantie, which is
apt to go something like this :-

(SOLO.) I thought I heard the first-mate say
He'd give us grog three times to-day.
(ALL.) Belay!
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He goes on to present WHISKEY JOHNNY, SO HANDY MY BOYS, LEAVE HER JOHNNY, and BONEY. All are obviously from Davis/Tozer, however in some he changes the wording slightly. Not sure what the ethics of that are.

Quotes a bit of the DREADNOUGHT:
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She's a high-sounding Packet,
A Packet of fame,
She comes from New York,
And the Dreadnought 's her name.
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Then, BLACKBALL LINE as in Davis/Tozer.

Hutchison goes on to compare the chanties to the ballad the "Hangman's
Tree," which he quotes. After words he comments:
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It is the tendency of the popular ballad, by reason of its constant
repetition by a folk who are permanent, to become fairly well knit
structurally; the chantie, because the group of men among whom
it originates maintains its homogeneity but a short time, is under no
such law. Hence, in the latter, we are unlikely to pass beyond the
inconsequential stage. Even the most primitive ballad we can bring
forward has, by reason of generations of repetition, become a better
piece of work, structurally, than we can expect any chantie to be.
For this very reason, however, the chantie is especially valuable for
the hypothesis. In the chantie, the solo-lines are so simple, involve
so much repetition, are so conventional (from the point of view of
ship-life, that is to say) and the "motif" in every case so obvious,
that we should suspect communal composition, even if we could not
be sure of it.
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Something about his sources:
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Another characteristic common both to the popular ballad and to
the chantie is that there is no text, there are texts. As from time
to time collections of popular ballads are made, so are collections of
chanties made. In preparing this article such a collection has been
used whenever the texts the author had collected were not suited to
the purpose. But in any such compilation the versions given are no
more authentic than would be texts from any other compilation : the
versions given are simply those which happened to be familiar to the
sailor or sailors whom the collector happened to consult, - other
sailors would have furnished him with very different versions.
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OK, this might make sense, but where does it lead?

Hutchison goes on to compare a few chanty texts, the first two of which he lets on are from the same author, but does not state who that is. Again I find this of dubious ethics. The presumption is that since these are "communal," there is no one agent that gets the credit and/or it is somehow pointless to keep track of variations. (Reminds me of a lot of "folksingers" who invoke "the folk process" and then go on doing opaque covers of "versions" they found.) I don't know where these songs came from. The first is a variation of what Hugill called "Bound to California" and which he got out of C. Fox Smith's 1927 book. The latter collected only the chorus, as here. Something funny seems to be going on. The second song starts like "Sacramento," but then ends like the first song.
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Take this stanza from a chantie which originated in the earlier
days of the California trade:

Good-bye, my love, good-bye,
I cannot tell you why,
I 'm off to Californy
To dig the yellow gold.

On the very same ship from which this was collected, another
sailor gave this version:-

Blow, boys, blow,
For Californy, O!
We're bound for Sacramento
To dig the yellow gold.
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He goes on to connect these to BLOW BOYS BLOW and BLOW THE MAN DOWN as found in Davis/Tozer. He is saying that all 4 of these songs are related, but why? Because they say "blow"? How is that significant to say they are related?
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But this, in turn, is clearly related to the following chantie:

Yankee ship came down the river,
Blow, boys, blow!
Her masts did bend, her sides did shiver,
Blow, my jolly boys, blow!
The sails were old, her timbers rotten,
Blow, etc.
His charts the skipper had forgotten,
Blow, my jolly boys, blow!
Who do you think was skipper of her?
Blow, etc.
"Old Preaching Sam," the noted scoffer,
Blow, etc.
She sailed away for London city,
Blow, etc.
Never got there, what a pity!
Blow, etc.

And if this is not a version of the following, it is, at least, related to
it:-

I 'll sing you a song, a good song of the sea,
To my ay, ay, blow the man down;
I trust that you'll join in the chorus with me,
Give me some time to blow the man down.

If so many variations of one theme have come down to us, how
many more, simply for lack of a recorder, must have perished ? The
man who has succeeded in becoming principal "chantie-man" on
one ship, is, on his next voyage, beaten out by some rival; neverthe-
less, he will often be able to assert himself, -to use the current
slang phrase, which expresses the situation exactly, he will succeed
occasionally in "butting in." The result would be, if we should
report any chantie sung on this latter voyage, that we should have,
not the version either would have given had he been the sole "fore-
singer" of the ship, but we should have a version which would be a
patchwork of those two. But, further, this patchwork would be,
not merely a combination of their two versions, but of many, for,
just as these two have been rival chantie producers on this particular
voyage, each will have had his rival on previous voyages. Hence,
so much of chantie material as each brings with him to this ship
-brings in his memory, of course, not on paper -will be no more
his own than the version which we might take down on this voyage
would be the sole product of either of our two men. And this would
hold true, back and back, as far as one cared to carry it.
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Talking about the rhythm of a job suggesting chanty form, he eventually quotes SHENANDOAH from Davis/Tozer. He also gives the following, derivative of the song "Old Joe":

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And this, from a Negro chantie:-

Ol' Joe, bully ol' Joe,
Hi pretty yaller gal!
Kicking up behind, Ol' Joe;
Ol' Joe's got some very fine clo's,
Whar he get 'em nobody knows, -
Hi pretty yaller gal
Kicking up behind, Ol' Joe.
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MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA
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In short, any song not too complex to march by can be used for a capstan chantie, and the conditions imposed upon the windlass chantie are not more rigid…A favorite capstan chantie is "Marching through Georgia."
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